Monday, September 29, 2014

...at Catholic secondary schools in the dioceses of Westminster or Southwark...read here to find out about a project you will enjoy...

Note to teachers: we would like to have LOTS of entries...so do get the whole class working on this, and send us the entries in bulk. We have a number of attractive runner-up prizes in addition to the main prize...

Sunday, September 28, 2014

...of a sort. But it is not really clear why it will be useful to send our pilots flying over the desert and dropping bombs. Aerial bombardment only has value if you are trying to achieve something specific on the ground. What is it that we are seeking to achieve?

During the Falklands War, the object was to regain territory and place it once again under the British crown. Bombing airfields that could be used by the enemy was a part of the campaign: it had rather mixed results because airfields can be repaired and used again fairly soon, but it did help to make things difficult for the enemy. The actual victory was gained by landing troops who fought their way across the land, reached the capital, and liberated the islands.

Today's war? A vile terrorist group of fanatical Moslem faith is spread across different territories in three countries - four, if you include our own, where there seem to be some enthusiastic cells plotting to create horror in our cities. Killing terrorists isn't easy: they have their own places in which to live and work and hide, and it isn't possible to detect these from the air. Bombing places doesn't always achieve much strategically, and it has the disadvantage of making all the people who are bombed hate you, and unite against you, even if earlier they had viewed you with some favour.

..scattering along pavements...and a seaside town at the end of summer. I love September - it is the best of all months and England at this time of year can be so utterly enchanting. There is a slight sense of sadness in Autumn which has its own charm. But now there is an extra edge: High Street shops closing ("people buy everything over the internet - we can't compete") and the whole atmosphere marred by shouting and shrieking people from an "adult weekend" at a nearby holiday camp, all over-excited and tiresome, men dressed in women's clothes etc, drunk, slobbering, loud. Oh, our poor country...

Friday, September 26, 2014

..."the world's biggest coffee morning" was happening at this local church, in aid of this extremely worthwhile organisation, so Auntie went along, taking some of this summer's jam...this is a splendid parish, with a large weekday Mass attendance (and a Sunday attendance of over 1,000), so it was no surprise to find stacks of delicious cakes, a good crowd, and a buzz of friendly talk. The Mass that preceded the Coffee Morning was celebrated by a priest who has been helping out in the parish for some while and was marking his 90th birthday and after Mass finished he got a song and applause and greetings...

...And then in the afternoon I was giving out prizes at a cheerful and welcoming prep school, straight out of the pages of Jennings...it was sheer pleasure being there. Well, things in 2014 aren't quite like the days of Anthony Buckeridge, as any fule kno, but addressing a hall full of small boys in bright maroon blazers, and shaking hands and distributing prizes, in a general atmosphere of purposeful activity, courtesy, good humour and common sense, was a tonic. A racial and religious mix, the boys were open and friendly, confident and well-mannered...

Thursday, September 25, 2014

...is on Wed Oct 1st. Meet 6.30pm (after the 5.30pm Mass) on the steps of Westminster Cathedral. We will walk down to the river and along the south bank. All welcome: no need to book, just turn up...wear comfortable shoes for walking.

To give you a taster: did you know that the City of Westminster has the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, holding her divine Son, on its coat-of-arms? Next time you come out of Westminster Cathedral, and cross Victoria Street and walk down past the City Hall, stop and look at the big coat-of-arms by its main door. There she is, on a blue background, right in the centre...

Another taster: do you know the origins of the Blew Coat School (yes, that spelling is correct) and the Green Coat Boy pub, and the Grey Coat Hospital?

...of conspiracy theories that circulate pointlessly in the gossipy fringes of Catholic internet chat. For years as a Catholic journalist I'd get photocopied newsletters telling me that the FreeMasons Were in Charge of the Vatican and that this or that ex-priest had Definite Information About The Most Dreadful Goings-On, from a Source That Couldn't Be Revealed...and one got various versions of a story about something that had happened or, oops, no, this time it was the same event but with another year and another Cardinal and a different set of freemasons...and it was all going to end with a big ghastly event in 1983...er...1997...no...2000....er...2010...er...and it had Been Revealed in a Vision in 1870-something, but really was linked to the Illuminati many years earlier. And so on. And so on. And now the internet is making it all much worse, and I've had two or three versions of various conspiracy-theories that have been recycled in newer forms. Some contradict one another and most have passed their sell-by date and been rehashed...

What is never clear is why circulating all this is supposed to be useful.

...on Tuesday at the first of the new series of Evenings of Faith organised by the FAITH Movement and held at the parish hall of the Church of the Church of the Assumption near Piccadilly Circus. The Book of Genesis, Original Sin, what it means to be human...a fascinating talk and a good discussion, a packed hall, wine and pizza...find out more about future evenings by clicking on that link...

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

...the Church will not because she cannot, change the reality of marriage and cannot cease teaching this reality.

Speculation in today's press includes a muddled piece of writing by columnist Christina Odone, who continues to say that the Church refuses Holy Communion to people who are divorced. This is not the case. A couple may go through a civil divorce because one spouse insists on it (and under current unjust British laws it is effectively impossible for the other spouse to prevent it happening) or because it is the only legal way to sort out an impossible situation. But this does not - because it cannot - free either party to marry again. Marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a woman. Separating might be necessary. But it means that the marriage still exists. Neither party is free to attempt a new union.

Only by attempting to break the bond of marriage by starting a new union does this issue of Holy Communion arise. We all know that if we are involved in a sexual relationship outside of marriage this is contrary to God's plan...this isn't an arbitrary rule of the Church, but belongs to the very essence of things. It is not something that the Pope or a Synod can change.

Of course there are complex issues in specific situations. Today, people "marry" without meaning to commit to a lifelong union that is open to children. Or a Catholic may go through a civil marriage with some one who is already divorced - and then later seek a divorce and be unclear as to his/her situation when seeking a further partner. And there are young people, brought up in a divided series of households with parents who marry and remarry, or have various partners: in such a situation understanding the reality of marriage may be difficult.

The Church can make a declaration of nullity - that a marriage never existed - for example in the first case listed in the previous paragraph. This is not divorce. It is a recognition, after lengthy investigation, that what appeared to be a marriage was in fact not. It is right that access to information on this should be available and that people should know what to do if they think their marriage is null. Nor should they be restricted from having access to help in sorting things out.

But it really isn't up to the Daily Telegraph, or anyone else, to pretend that marriage is about "rules" that can be changed, like the rules of a cricket club, or even like rules concerning the Church's calendar or disciplines on fasting...

In 1968 there was a widespread belief that the Church would "change the rules" about contraception. The Church couldn't and didn't. And now Pope Paul VI, who held firm and spoke with courage affirming the truth in Humanae Vitae, is to be beatified. The Pope is custodian of the truth: it's not his to change, it belongs to the Church and his task is to present this truth with love and understanding and pastoral wisdom, to teach the truth and help all to live it. Paul VI showed the way.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

...which is the nearest Tube station for 24 Golden Square, the parish hall of the Warwick Street church where the FAITH Movement is holding the first of its evening talks on "Jesus Christ and Human Love". Join us on alternate Tuesdays at 7.30pm...tonight, then Oct 7th, Oct 21st, Nov 4th...all welcome...

Intriguing the questions one is now asked on official forms.(Nothing to do with the actual college where I will be studying, btw,which is excellent) My ethnicity? I'm honestly not really sure...perhaps some Saxon, maybe a bit of Viking, who knows? Never thought about it. I meekly agree that I'm just "white" which seems a bit bleak, but all they want is a category...did my parents complete any further education after leaving school? Well, no - a bit busy defending our country in a world war. But being able to put a confident negative to that question will, I now realise, put me into the category of Underprivileged Person, which is both amusing and inaccurate. Oddly, however, there is a lack of questions which would give useful information about me: about my marital status, for example, or my relationship to the person I list as Next of Kin.

But of course the idea isn't to obtain information in order to assist me in my studies, but to announce commitment to the correct ideological perspective. Marriage is a no-no topic, but thinking in social class categories might help to make the right sort of noise. All officialdom feels obliged to do this now. I can live with it. But it has a lunatic quality that adds a spooky feeling to everyday living. And at least they didn't ask the question a colleague had to answer the other day when completing some obligatory form for officialdom: is the gender to which you now wish to be assigned the same one as on your birth certificate?

Sunday, September 21, 2014

...celebrating the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham...held at Westminster Cathedral. Auntie was invited to speak about LOGS (and if you don't know about LOGS, you can find out by reading this) and there were reports from Ordinariate groups including Torbay and Darlington...

The Hall was packed - people had to find extra seats in the gallery - and there was a great atmosphere. Cardinal Vincent Nichols came and gave a good and thoughtful address...you can read this and other major addressees at the conference here ... and there was a glorious Mass in the Cathedral concelebrated by vast numbers of Ordinariate priests...and then in the evening LOGS held a Reception at Precious Blood Church which was great fun, and included delicious food and a formal gathering of LOGS with a Magnificent Album reporting on our work, about which I will be writing in detail another time...

...at the Kent Country cricket ground...where the St Peter's eleven met the Archbishop of Canterbury's eleven for a superb match. Among those gathered to watch were the Papal Nuncio Archbishop Mennini - who hugely enjoyed it all despite being somewhat baffled about the intricacies of the game! - Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark, the British Ambassador to the Holy See Nigel Baker, and of course the Australian ambassador to the H. See, John McCarthy whose enthusiasm had initiated the whole project.

As the warm afternoon slipped into a mellow evening with the sky a rosy glow, the close-run match finished with a win for the Archbishop of Canterbury's team amid a roar of well-deserved applause, and the two teams were shaking hands and there were speeches and medals and the presentation of a cup and promises of a return match next year...and then there was a glorious dinner in the Pavilion., speeches, laughter, delicious food...

This was Britain at its best and I loved it.

....and here is Auntie with the team, pictured when we met at Westminster Cathedral the other day....

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

...and a warm September day. Spent the day at the Mad Bishop and Bear at Paddington station, which is a convenient and pleasant place to meet my co-author Clare Anderson. We start with coffee and open up the computer and get to work, and then move on in a talkative way via lunch to more coffee and then finally Tea...the team at the MBB know us and ask how the book/TV work/etc is going and the whole thing has a cheery we-feel-at-home-here mood.

On to Westminster Cathedral for the sung 5.30pm Mass - the choir is now back after the summer break - and there was a mild stir and heads swivelling to look as a team of young men in clerical dress and smart blazers arrived. The Vatican cricket team! They are all young priests, deacons or seminarians, and they are a simply wonderful group, and afterwards I had my photograph taken with them on the cathedral steps...and in due course, yes, I'll post it on this Blog.

Auntie feels a special link with the St Peter's team - their blazers are a glorious mellow gold and feature the crossed keys badge - as this whole venture was the brainchild of HE John McCarthy, the Australian ambassador to the Holy See, and a longstanding friends of the Bogles. John and Christine McCarthy - he is a distinguished lawyer and she is a concert pianist - have a wonderful family and have often welcomed us to their home in Sydney and, more recently, to the Embassy residence in Rome. The cricket team is just one of a number of goodwill initiatives launched by John McCarthy, and among much else the matches will raise funds for the Vatican's work in supporting international efforts to ban child slavery and human trafficking.

Monday, September 15, 2014

...and a symposium in Austria, at the gloriously restored monastery at Gaming, which is now the European campus of America's Franciscan University of Steubenville. This English-language symposium examined the life and legacy of St John Paul and it was an enormous privilege to take part.

Among those attending were bishops and senior clergy from across Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, and the keynote speaker was Dr Hannah Suchoka, Prime Minister of Poland under Lech Walesa's presidency. 2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall...much to discuss and it was a time to look forward rather than back: new problems, new challenges, new issues, and the theme of the symposium was the New Evangelisation. Among many interesting lectures was one on JP's philosophy and his emphasis on the absolute value of the human person, and his work exploring Max Scheler's ideas...

Austria badly - very badly - needs the New Evangelisation. People have become used to the notion of Catholicism as a tradition, something that simply keeps going but doesn't require any real assent and certainly not personal prayer and regular attendance at Mass...so vocations to the priesthood are small in number, and there is general acceptance of ideas such as voluntary euthanasia and same-sex unions...a sort of passive inert form of agnosticism beneath an acquaintance with traditional Catholic ceremonies and calendar...

A great source of hope is the magnificent monastery of Heiligenkreuz, about an hour or so from Gaming, on the road to Vienna. There are some 85 monks there, living the Benedictine rule...we joined them for midday prayer, and the glorious chanting filled the vast ancient abbey church...they are kept busy and run a large number of nearby parishes.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

...my time in the West Country, but there is something sad about modern British towns on a warm late-summer evening. Teenage children stand about shouting obscenities in the dreary corners of a shopping centre in Taunton, unhappy, and with bored, sullen faces. Even those twirling their bicycles were not having any fun, but just aimlessly going round in bleak circles, muttering 4-letter words amid the litter. I enjoyed a wander by the riverside park, which was empty - why do the children prefer ugliness?

Taunton has always had a solid, family sort of feel to it in a square-windowed, vaguely Georgian, way, with good shops and a sense of bustle because of the railway and the canal and connections across the West country. There are some fine churches, and an extraordinary history...Civil war...Monmouth...

The riverside walk putters out into a car park/bridge/main road/supermarket-ish sort of area and I turned back towards the Castle and the Apple and Parrot...and thence back to the hotel and my computer and some work...

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

...visits Britain next week. Founder of the project is the Australian ambassador to the Holy See, HE John McCarthy. The team recently met Pope Francis, who signed a cricket bat for them.

Auntie will be at the match next Friday in Kent when the Vatican team takes on a Church of England team. You can read more about it here and here...

I first heard about this venture while in Rome, talking to the McCarthys, and it has been fun watching the project take shape. It's a good initiative and in addition to spreading ecumenical goodwill, it will raise funds for an international charity working to end slavery.

The event arranged in South London went well and was held at Precious Blood Church, London Bridge.
There was a good gathering, with people from various local
churches including St George’s Cathedral, Southwark. The DVD featuring Mgr Keith Newton and Catherine Utley
proved an excellent opening, and was followed by Father Scott Anderson
presenting “Part Two” which told the story of the Anglican /Catholic ventures
for unity over the past two centuries, finishing with the formation of the Ordinariate
.This led on perfectly to the
question-and-answer session with a panel on which he was joined by the two
churchwardens of the parish, Bernadette Josiah-John and Christopher Smith.Questions covered topics ranging from Evensong,
married clergy, and liturgy, to parish
life and the nature of “Anglican patrimony”.No one seemed to feel shy about raising any topic, and the mood was
open, friendly, and frank – and all accepted
with similar enthusiasm the invitation to Tea in the Long Room in the Rectory: a
magnificent spread in the best tradition, with sandwiches and lavish cakes.
Then followed sung Evensong in the church, possibly the most memorable part of
the day: glowing candles, fine singing, and the golden light of a September
evening,gently rounded off with a
meditation by Antonia Lynn, before the final Blessing.

A good day, and one
which blended information, hospitality and prayer – and perhaps enableda number of Londoners to understand something
of what the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham seeks to offer.

Sunday, September 07, 2014

..and the misty look of suburban gardens in the very early morning, as I gathered apples and sought out the last blackberries... faint spider webs looping across from straggling bramble to battered fence, and surprisingly tangly and sticky when one walks into them...

More people at church than we have seen all summer, people moving up to make room: it's weird, some families do seem to see Sunday Mass as optional during the holiday season, and reappear when September signals the start of the routine of work and normal life...

Off to the West Country for a round of visits. I settled with a newspaper and a copy of Standpoint and was soon absorbed but, looking up at one point, I was struck by the utterly glorious beauty of the scene rushing past outside the window ...the countryside in golden harvest, glowing in evening light, fabulous, almost heartbreakingly so, and curiously, somehow, also vulnerable-looking...

And thoughts blended this with the relentless fearsome reality of what is unfolding in the world and in our country.

Saturday, September 06, 2014

Recent pilgrims to Walsingham brought back a big bucket of water from the well there. The well was discovered in the early years of the 20th century, and is thought to date back to Saxon times...perhaps to the very foundation of the shrine in the years immediately before the Norman Conquest.

It was a time of fear and uncertainty in the Middle East, with militant Moslem armies asserting control and gaining territory. And in an English village, six miles from the North Sea and a world away from the Holy Land, the lady of the manor, who was related to the Saxon royal house that would shortly be overthrown by the Conquest, had a vision...

The Walsingham water brought back from this summer's pilgrimage has been placed in a covered container in this church which is in the care of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and we have been urged to take some home...not to drink, but to sprinkle prayerfully, especially if some one is ill and in need of prayer and consolation...

So the other evening, I was travelling home on the Tube with (a) a big basket of jam jars donated so that I can fill them with apple jelly and damson cheese for the Towards Advent Festival and (b) a couple of jars of water but (c) no train ticket as I had left the wretched thing (OYSTER pass) back at the church. Forunately it was late, and people were kind. Fellow-passengers rallied round - initially amused at my frantic efforts to search through my backpack for the ticket, and then helpful when these proved hopeless and truth dawned. On the Tube trundling through the southern suburbs, conversation flowed. One chap kindly gave me complementary tickets for a play in which he was performing in Leicester Square this weekend (alas, I am unable to attend). Another, befriending me at a bus-stop, got chatting about books and turned out to be a fellow-writer and saw me safely to my destination. People are kind. No one asked about the water: I hope Our Lady of Walsingham blesses them all...

...and children are back at school, hurrying around and shouting at bus-stops in their school uniforms. The thing I notice most these days is the girls in their thick Moslem veils along with their school blazers. For many, many young people in Britain who are not Moslems, the Moslem religion is nevertheless not something odd or foreign, it's schoolfriends and colleagues, and a dominant feature of everyday life. Whereas Christianity...

Wednesday, September 03, 2014

...at Buckfast Abbey in Devon has a big celebration planned for September 8th, the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary...

Auntie plans to be among those attending - Jamie alas unable to join me as he has work commitments - and it promises to be a wonderful day. Cardinal George Pell will be celebrating the Mass in the Abbey church and there is a reception afterwards.

Buckfast Abbey is a glorious place to visit and this initiative for the New Evangelisation adds an exciting chapter to the long Christian history of this corner of Devon...

...that one reason why confused young men from Moslem backgrounds are becoming vicious fanatics is that crude ranters in mosques are able to point to the ugly sexual confusion and social problems of the West...and to try to claim that Islam is the answer.

Successful campaigners for same-sex "marriage" and for the normalising of teenage sexual activity have given the most ghastly and horrible message about Britain to young people across the Middle East and elsewhere...young people whose parents and grandparents used to admire and honour our country and its achievements and to see Christianity from that perspective.

...organising the Autumn series of Evenings of Faith...all are welcome, so catch the Tube to Piccadilly Circus on September 23rd and join us for the first of them. We met to plan and arrange things, had a lively talkative supper and came up with some good names for speakers for the next series in Jan 2015 too...the Faith Movement has grown from its beginnings back in 1972 and there is lots going on...